Father of the HO Slot Car

Rare Photo of Derek Brand

Derek Brand was born in England in 1926.
He is often largely credited with the the emergence of slot cars as a viable product. One that resulted in a "craze" in the U.S. and abroad during the 1960s.

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Breaking New Ground

In the 1950s, Brand worked at the US based Gowland company.
He was charged with the development of a new toy, the HO scale slot car. Meanwhile the Gowland company was sold to Carl Robinette, director of the English Crafco company. Derek could continue his work with Crafco. Together with Carl Robbins they comitted themselves for a slot car in 1:76 scale, which would be combined with the English 00 gauge train models. After a period of time Derek succeeded in this development. After several unsuccessfull engine models (most of them were oversized) he developed a doorbell buzzer system.

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A Partner

Now they had to find a factory who would produce them in license.
In the US they found a partner in the Mettoy company, Mettoy already had experience in the modellcar market with they Corgi models. They acquired not only the license to produce the Highway system, but also rented all the equipment that was needed for production from Crafco.

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The Brighton Toy Fair

Production had started back in 1958.
Soon after, the Playcraft Highways system was introduced at the Brighton Toy Fair. Derek Brand had produced a set of 12 handmade different models with his "vibrator" engine. Four of them made it into the final production.

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